I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to mobile Internet protocol (MIP)/proxy MIP (PMIP) concatenation when overlapping address space are used.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication; for instance, voice and/or data can be provided via such wireless communication systems. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, . . . ). For instance, a system can use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) systems, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and others.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems can simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device can communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from base stations to mobile devices, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from mobile devices to base stations. This communication link can be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-signal-out, or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
For instance, a MIMO system can employ multiple (NT) transmit antennas and multiple (NR) receive antennas for data transmission. A MIMO channel formed by the NT transmit and NR receive antennas can be decomposed into NS independent channels, which are also referred to as spatial channels, where NS≦min{NT, NR}. Each of the NS independent channels can correspond to a dimension. The MIMO system can provide improved performance (e.g., higher throughput and/or greater reliability) if the additional dimensionalities created by the multiple transmit and receive antennas are utilized.
A MIMO system can support a time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD) systems. In a TDD system, the forward and reverse link transmissions can be on the same frequency region so that the reciprocity principle allows the estimation of the forward link channel from the reverse link channel. This can enable the access point to extract transmit beamforming gain on the forward link when multiple antennas are available at the access point
Wireless communication systems oftentimes employ one or more base stations that provide a coverage area. A typical base station can transmit multiple data streams for broadcast, multicast and/or unicast services, wherein a data stream may be a stream of data that can be of independent reception interest to a mobile device. A mobile device within the coverage area of such base station can be employed to receive one, more than one, or all the data streams carried by the composite stream. Likewise, a mobile device can transmit data to the base station or another mobile device.
Often, individual networks, such as home networks, corporate networks, or private networks, can have overlapping address spaces. Similar systems that connect communication devices, such as mobile devices, to an Internet network can be faced with the issue that a network to which the system attempts to connect the communication device uses overlapping address spaces.
One technique for enabling connection of communication devices where a network uses overlapping address spaces, such as when a public data network gateway (PGW) is to serve multiple public data networks (PDNs), is to employ policy routing where a unique tunnel end point identifier (TE ID) can be used for each communication device to facilitate data transmissions between the source and destination. For uplink transmission, a TE ID associated with a communication device can be mapped to a desired outgoing tunnel to a desired PDN. For downlink transmission, the destination address (e.g., destination Internet protocol (IP) address) of a data packet on a per PDN (incoming tunnel) basis can be mapped to a given TE ID.
For example, a first mobile device can be associated with a first address space, a second mobile device can be associated with a second address space, and a third mobile device can be associated with an address space that overlaps the first address space. Each mobile device can be associated with a respective TE ID, and all of these mobile devices can be connected to a base station. The base station can be connected to a signaling gateway (SGW). The base station and SGW can utilize the TE IDs to facilitate switching related to the mobile devices. The SGW can be connected to a PGW that can employ policy routing to route data packets to desired PDNs based on the respective TE IDs, destination address, and PDN associated with respective data packets. Essentially tunnels (e.g., IP/IP security (IPSEC) tunnels) can be formed, where the routing of a data packet to a given tunnel and PDN associated therewith can be based in part on the TE ID associated with the data packet. For instance, using the TE IDs, data packets associated with the first mobile device can be routed to a first tunnel and to a first PDN associated therewith, data packets associated with the second mobile device can be routed to a second tunnel and a second PDN associated therewith, and data packets associated with the third mobile device can be routed to the second tunnel and associated second PDN. As a result, the issue of overlapping address spaces with regard to the first mobile device and third mobile device is resolved, as data packets respectively associated with the first mobile device and third mobile device are routed through separate tunnels and separate PDNs.
However, techniques that employ unique identifiers, such as TE IDs, to identify mobile communication devices to facilitate routing data associated with the communication devices in networks having overlapping address space can utilize significant memory resources as the unique identifiers of each communication device have to be stored in memory. It is desirable to efficiently establish a communication connection and route data in a network from source to destination particularly when there are overlapping address spaces. It is also desirable to efficiently use resources, such as memory resources, when establishing communication connections and routing data in the network.